Embedded Files
DOCUMENT 1
This secondary source shows the estates of France and their tax responsibilities. Before the French Revolution, France was divided into "estates" or social classes. The first estate was the clergy, or members of the church, the second estate was the nobility, and the third estate was the peasants.
What percentage of the population was the first estate? The second estate? The third estate?
Based on what you have already read, which of the three estates was the poorest?
Which estate is taxed the highest? Which estate is taxed the lowest?
Based on this graph, why might the people of the third estate be unhappy?
DOCUMENT 2
The following is an bar graph showing the debt of the royal family of France from 1643 until 1715.
Based on this graph, what happened to France debt during the period of 1643 to 1715?
How would the information in this graph support the French Revolution?
DOCUMENT 3
This excerpt is from Travels in France During the Years 1787, 1788, 1789, by Arthur Young, an Englishman who visited the French cities of Combourg and Montauban.
To Combourg: The country has a savage aspect; husbandry not much further advanced, at least in skill, than among the Hurons (Native Americans)... The people almost as wild as their country, and their town of Combourg one of the most brutal, filthy places that can be seen; mud houses, no windows, and a pavement so broken as to impede all passengers...
To Montauban: The poor people seem poor indeed; the children terribly ragged, if possible, worse clad than if with no clothes at all; as to shoes and stockings, they are luxuries...They did not beg, and when I gave them anything seemed more surprised than obliged. One third of what I have seen of this province seems uncultivated, and nearly all of it in misery...
Based on this document, what is life like for the people who live in the French countryside?
Based on the previous two documents, what might account for the poverty of the people in the countryside?
DOCUMENT 4
The following are two textbook extracts that illustrate the differences in clothing between people of different classes in France.
1. Describe the differences you can see between the members of the second estate and the third estate.
2. Describe the Sumptuary Laws. What was their purpose?
3. As the revolution progressed, why did more and more people start to wear the revolutionary-style clothing?
4. What do the differences in clothing between the estates and the rules about clothing tell us about French society before and during the revolution?
DOCUMENT 5
The following is from the writings of Joseph Weber, the foster brother of Marie Antoinette, who wrote about Frenchmen in the American Revolution.
All those warriors in the prime of life who had to run and fight in the New World had departed Frenchmen and returned Americans. They had sought only perils and military glory; they brought back systems and patriotic enthusiasm. They returned to the midst of a court, bearing on their breasts wounds sustained in the cause of liberty, and on their coats were the external signs of a republican decoration… Lafayette returned to his native land full of a burning desire and of vain illusions of an exotic liberty which, transplanted to France, would produce there, fruits so different from those which he expected…
1. According to the passage, what happened to the French soldiers who went and fought in the American Revolution?
2. What were Lafayette's expectations when he returned to France? What was the reality?
DOCUMENT 6
The following is an excerpt from the Documentary History of the French Revolution, edited by John Hall Stewart.
On June 17, 1789 the Third Estate proclaimed itself the “National Assembly” and invited the other two estates to join it in the work of governmental reform. Three days later when the commoners of the Third Estate came to meeting hall in the palace of Versailles they found the door shut and guarded by troops.
The commoners proceeded to a public building, which was used as a riding house and tennis court. They took an oath as members of the “National Assembly”. The “Oath of the Tennis Court” is called the beginning of the French Revolution. In the Tennis Court Oath, they "decree[d] that all members of this Assembly shall immediately take a solemn oath not to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established..."
1. Why did the members of the National Assembly end up in the tennis courts?
2. What did the members of the National Assembly promise when they made the tennis court oath?
DOCUMENT 7
The following are the observations of Arthur Young, an Englishman traveling in France during the revolution.
The business going forward at present in the pamphlet shops of Paris is incredible. I went to the Palais Royal to see what new things were published and to procure a catalogue of all. Every hour produces something new. Thirteen came out today, sixteen yesterday, and ninety-two last week. Nineteen-twentieths of these productions [pamphlets] are in favor of liberty, and commonly violent against the clergy and the nobility.
But the coffee houses of the Palais Royal present yet more singular and astonishing spectacles: they are not only crowded within, but other expectant crowds are at the doors and windows, listening. The eagerness with which they are heard, and the thunder of applause they receive for every sentiment [feeling] of ... violence against the present government [the monarchy], cannot be easily imagined.
1. What changes began to happen in France when the revolution began?
2. Of the new book and pamphlets created, what were most about?
3. Based on this account, would you agree with the following statement: "The French Revolution brought the people of France together in salons and coffee shops, where they discussed how much they wanted to bring back the king." Explain your answer.
DOCUMENT 8
The following is from the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, a document similar to the Declaration of Independence, which enumerated the ideas that all of the citizens of France should have. Notice that many of them are ideas from the Enlightenment.
1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.
2. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural ... rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.
4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.
5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law.
6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its formation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents.
7. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases ... prescribed by law.
8. The law shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary....
9. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty...
10. No one shall be disquieted [troubled] on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation [expression] does not disturb the public order established by law.
11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print wirh freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.
12. The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces. These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be instructed.
1. According to this document, what rights do all people have? List as many as you can find.
2. What kind of government do you think the National Assembly was trying to create? Which article of the declaration indicates this?
3. Choose two of the articles from the declaration. For each article, explain why the assembly would want these rights - how were they not protected under the reign of King Louis XVI?
DOCUMENT 9
The following is a circular that would have been publicly distributed in France. It was created by the Paris Jacobin Club and distributed to the local branches. The Jacobins were a radical political party who wanted to bring major changes to France during the revolution, who were eventually led by Robespierre.
Friends, we are betrayed! To arms! … Your greatest enemies are in your midst… Yes, the counter-revolution is in the government… in the National Convention! Let us rise! Yes, let us rise! Let us arrest all the enemies of our revolution, and all suspected persons. Let us exterminate, without pity, all conspirators, unless we wish to be exterminated ourselves.
1. According to this document, why do the people need to rise up?
2. According to the Jacobins, who should be arrested or exterminated [killed]?
DOCUMENT 10
Below is an excerpt from a textbook about the Reign of Terror.
1. What happened during the Reign of Terror?
2. How were some enemies of the revolution killed?
3. Which city had the greatest number of people killed in 1793?
DOCUMENT 11
The following is a secondary source about the end of the Reign of Terror, and the subsequent rise of Napoleon.
On July 27, 1794, Robespierre and his allies were placed under arrest by the National Assembly. Robespierre was taken to the Luxembourg prison in Paris, but the warden refused to jail him, and he fled to the Hotel de Ville. Armed supporters arrived to aid him, but he refused to lead a new insurrection [uprising]. When he received word that the National Convention had declared him an outlaw, he shot himself in the head but only succeeded in wounding his jaw. Shortly thereafter, troops of the National Convention attacked the Hotel de Ville and seized Robespierre and his allies. The next evening--July 28--Robespierre and 21 others were guillotined without a trial in the Place de la Revolution. During the next few days, another 82 Robespierre followers were executed. The Reign of Terror was at an end.
In the aftermath of the coup, the Committee of Public Safety lost its authority, the prisons were emptied, and the French Revolution became decidedly less radical [less extreme]. The Directory that followed saw a return to bourgeois [rich] values, corruption, and military failure. In 1799, the Directory was overthrown in a military coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte, who wielded dictatorial powers in France as first consul and, after 1804, as French emperor.
1. According to the document, how did the Reign of Terror end?
2. What happened to the French Revolution after the end of the Reign of Terror?
3. Describe the ruling of the Directory in your own words.
DOCUMENT 12
The following is a map showing the extent of Napoleon's empire in Europe.
1. According to the map, which countries were either controlled by Napoleon or allies of France in 1810?
2. Based on this map, what was the last major defeat that Napoleon suffered before his final exile?
3. According to the map, which three countries in Europe were enemies of Napoleon?
DOCUMENT 13
The following is a secondary source about the Napoleonic Code.
Of Napoleon’s many great accomplishments, his Code Napoleon is the longest lasting legacy. Since the end of feudalism, France had been without one single body of laws that were standard around the country. This caused many problems in different parts of the country and created some very unfair legal situations, especially for the poor. They wanted the entire country to be on equal footing despite whether one was rich or poor. The Napoleonic Code ensured that one would have a chance to gain wealth and status. Other than Great Britain, Russia, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, every country in Europe has based some aspect of their body of laws on the Napoleonic Code. The Code itself is still in use today in former French colonies such as Quebec and Louisiana. The Napoleonic Code was Napoleon’s greatest civil achievement. Napoleon’s institution of the code secured France’s many accomplishments through the revolution and influenced many countries around the Atlantic World to add the same fair body of laws.
1. What kinds of laws did France have before the Napoleonic Code? Why was this unfair?
2. What was the goal of the Napoleonic Code?
3. What impact did the Napoleonic Code have on the world?
DOCUMENT 14
The following images show the changes made to Paris under Napoleon III. The text is from an article in the New Yorker about the demolition and reconstruction of Paris.
Paris Before and After
The Arc de Triumphe and Surrounding Boulevards
Paris Today, in Google Earth
A Paris Street before the Reconstruction
It’s hard to fathom just how enormous an undertaking the remaking of Paris was. In the early eighteen-thirties, seven hundred and eighty-five thousand people lived there. By 1851, the year that Louis-Napoleon staged his coup, there were more than a million. (New York had half as many.) That number only grew as workers started flocking to the city once construction was under way. Paris had long been in bad shape, much of it a medieval warren of “cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and want,” as Dickens put it in “A Tale of Two Cities.” Napoleon III didn’t come up with the idea of renovating the city; important projects had begun in the eighteen-thirties and forties. But he and Haussmann changed the scale of the operation by many orders of magnitude. Crumbling houses were extracted like so many rotting teeth, and replaced with Haussmann’s signature apartment buildings, with their tall windows to let in fresh air and sunshine. Narrow, filthy streets were razed to make way for wide boulevards—the better for the swelling bourgeois class to stroll along on a warm spring day, and for the military to roll its cannons down should an uprising need to be quashed.
1. What kinds of changes did Napoleon III and Haussmann make to Paris?
2. What was the purpose of destroying and rebuilding the city?
3. What do you notice about the layout of the city from the maps and pictures?
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